Frederick of Hollywood Lands With A Thud?

The initial flush of "OMG he's Reagan incarnate HEWUZANACTORANDEVERYTHING!!!1!!1" surrounding the potential candidacy of Fred Thompson has given way to the reality that, well, he may not be the savior which the conservative movement was hoping for. First of all, his fundraising is crap, which is pretty stunning considering all the hype:

Sources close to the presumptive campaign tell NBC News that Fred Thompson's fundraising is down "markedly." One claimed it has "slowed down big-time." The pace is described as a consequence of the delayed announcement to enter the race.

"The Friends of Fred, Inc." will report to the IRS its revenue by July 31st. Sources reveal to NBC News that number will be in the range of about $3 million. Five million dollars had been the talked-about June goal. Sources describe an early burst of donations in June and say the summer fundraising has fallen off. While additional fundraisers are planned, sources say the scheduling of fundraisers was "frozen" for a time while the team was going through some internal strains.

Those strains include the loss of his campaign manager, which may have been for Yoko-related reasons:

Tom Collamore, the former Altria exec who had been running Fred Thompson's campaign, has resigned and will be replaced by Randy Enwright. Enwright is a Florida political hand with ties to former Gov. Jeb Bush. Also coming on board in a leadership capacity is Spencer Abraham, the former Michigan senator and Energy secretary.

"We’re making a number of planned changes as we move to the next phase," said Thompson communications director Linda Rozett. "We’re adding political muscle to the organization."

A Thompson aide said that Enwright would serve as the day-to-day manager while Abraham would take more of a campaign chairman capacity.

Collamore will stay on as a "senior adviser" to the effort, but with a diminished role. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened, but Collamore was reportedly unhappy with the level of involvement of Thompson's wife, Jeri, and others in Thompson's inner circle found Collamore not up to the task of overseeing a presidential campaign.

Now, Collamore is more suited to the task of killing people by inches through pushing cancer sticks on them, so maybe that is the reason. But this "level of involvement" from the trophy wife is pretty interesting. She apparently is a former RNC operative. The idea that the woman behind the man is running the show in a campaign is usual war room chatter, but in this case, when you have an inexperienced candidate and an inexperienced team, it could actually be happening. Which is kind of hilarious.

Meanwhile, with more indications that Thompson isn't the movement conservative he purports to be, it appears that he's actually losing his luster before he even joins the campaign. I can't believe that Mitt Frickin' Romney is the odds-on favorite to be the GOP nominee. That just blows my mind.